2 out of 5

Label: Secretly Canadian

Produced by: Various

I get the idea here, but this is one of those concepts that makes me wonder: was anyone really asking for this? I do think with some sharper definitions of the goal, it could’ve turned out to be an interesting project, but to my ears, too much wiggle room was allowed, which ironically resulted in a lot of sameness.

The Unaccompanied Voice is a project favoring a capella tracks by notable singers (plucked from the indie folk / rock realm of the early 00s, at least), with that being seemingly the only guideline – voice only. While some artists minimally violate that – Dave Fischoff already does kinda spoken word to barely-there field recordings, so he just does his shtick – the precept is maintained. However, I think when you hand that rule to folksters, there’s perhaps a tendency to go traditional, so we get a fair amount of adaptations, or things that sound like adaptations, all done up lo-fi. And, wouldn’t ya know, strip a handful of artists from their instruments, and many of those “notable” voices come closer together. The other effect is that I can’t always say these songs feel like they’re structured for this format, with repetition running pretty rampant. So I might like X singer’s voice, but when they’re just repeating a particular limited melody for 3 minutes? I dunno.

As such, the ones that really break the mold – or the tracks where artists use additional voices as “instruments” – tend to stick out as highlights, but these are very much the minority. I think any one of the songs here would absolutely work as a single song on an album, or if there’d been more guidance to flesh these tracks out a bit, or push for more distinct styles, the comp could’ve worked. As-is, it’s an interesting pitch, but not much of a desirable listen beyond a few tracks and curiosity.